Just in case you were going to miss it, Thursday is “Read an a eBook Day“, a celebration of modern storytelling. Surprisingly, it’s not sponsored by Amazon on behalf of the Kindle but rather OverDrive whose apps let you borrow library books for free. Yes, for free.

It’s probably one of the best keep secrets in the whole tablet and ereader business. Contrary to what Amazon would have you believe, you don’t have to buy ebooks from them as there are plenty of up-to-date novels available from your local library. The downside is that transferring books isn’t that slick and you need an ereader that’s not tied in to the Amazon ecosystem. I have a Nook, but ereaders from Sony and Kobo are supported as well, and you need to load the books via a PC rather than downloading across the Net.

If you have tablet, it’s much easier as the OverDrive app is available for iOS, Android, Kindle and Windows Phone, as well as for Windows and Mac desktop platforms. Check the appropriate app store or else try OverDrive‘s web site. Once you have the app, all that’s needed is a membership of a library and you can download directly from your library to your tablet.

Instead of “Read an eBook Day”, Thursday should be “Read a Free eBook from your Local Library Day”.

These are tough economic times and if you want to save yourself a few pennies, stop buying ebooks, join your local library and borrow ebooks for free. The OverDrive Media Console app lets you download and read ebooks offered by your local library for nothing, and if audiobooks are of more interest, the app can handle those as well. The OverDrive app is available for most common smartphones and tablets, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Kindle Fire and Nook tablets. If you have a Kobo, Sony or Nook ereader, you can still borrow books from your library but you’ll need to use Adobe’s Digital Editions to download via your PC. If you have a Kindle ereader, you’re out of luck.

The app can be downloaded from most app stores and directly from OverDrive if your device’s app store doesn’t host the app. In the first instance, the app asks you to find your local library via simple search. Poking around I was able to find libraries in UK, USA, Canada, Mexico, Germany, India and Japan, so it has worldwide coverage but I’ve no real idea of how extensive it is.

For my library, I had enter my borrower number and again I assume it will be similar for most public libraries. Once you are in the system, you can browse for your favourite novels and authors, and then borrow the book you want. Before you can download the book, you’ll need to sign-up for an Adobe ID and put it into Overdrive’s settings. This is all part of the ePub DRM, but getting an ID is straightforward and free of charge.

Obviously the range of books is entirely dependent on your library but I found a good selection of books available (several of which I already owned!) and once you’ve got your reading selection downloaded, you can swap to Overdrive’s bookshelf to see what’s available for reading.

As a reader app, OverDrive Media Console is good. There’s a bit of delay when opening a book for the very first time, but after that it’s snappy. All the other usual features are there – typeface selection, font size, line spacing, colour schemes, animations, but overall it’s well done. Reading books is easy and a pleasure.

So, if you don’t want pay for ebooks and you’ve a tablet or smartphone, download the OverDrive Media Console, join your local library and start saving money. It’s a no-brainer!

Picture the scene….I’m on holiday, lying by the swimming pool, relaxing in the summer sun. It’s a 4-star hotel, nothing fancy, catering to families from all round Europe; Britain, France, Germany, Norway. As I look around my fellow guests, I notice that many of them are reading from ereaders – Kindles, Kobos and the odd Nook. A few people are reading celebrity magazines like Hello and Chat. What does surprise me is the total absence of paperbacks – in all the rows of sun loungers that I can see, there’s not a single paperback book. It’s as if the paperback became an endangered species from one year to the next.

In reality this shouldn’t be a surprise. Ebooks and ereaders have become popular and the continual reductions in weight allowances by the budget airlines have encouraged travellers to leave heavy paper at home. The result is children, parents and grandparents are all lying round the pool, electronics in hand. The paperback is on the verge of extinction.

And while the paperback is all but gone, this isn’t the death of the novel. By all evidence round the pool, the written word is still alive and well. Only the medium has changed from paper and ink to glass and eInk. I see a bright future for authors and novelists.

I’ve certainly no regrets myself, but it does make it very hard to see what your fellow sun-worshippers are reading.

There are literally hundreds of Android tablets on the market, many of which you have never heard of. Of that group, it is likely that you that you do not wish to hear of most them, but do not get the impression that makes the market bad. While I can not recommend you grabbing that no-name $79 tablet, as it is likely to end poorly for you, there are solid choices at reasonable prices.

You could go premium, with brands like Sony and Samsung, but the top sellers are a bargain in comparison — both Google Nexus and Amazon Kindle Fire HD lead the market and retail for $199.

I can not offer you any sort of deal from Google, but rival Amazon has placed its Kindle Fire HD 7-inch on sale for $169 “for a limited time”. The order includes free shipping and, if you are a Prime subscriber then that will be free two-day shipping.

The Barnes and Noble Nook HD, while never catching major market share, is also a solid entry in the market. It too is now discounted, with book giant offering the tablet for $129.

There are vastly different reasons for these bargain basement prices. Amazon is likely clearing inventory for a new model (unconfirmed), while the Nook has been discontinued, though B and N will continue to support the tablet. Either way, this the time to go tablet shopping.

Barnes & Noble has announced that it is not going to continue to produce new Nook tablet devices. Instead, it is going to transition to what it is calling a “partnership model”. The announcement from Barnes & Noble did not say what company it will be partnering with.

I believe a lot of us saw something like this coming. Barnes & Noble has been doing sale after sale on the Nook for quite some time now. It knocked down the price and suggested that it would make a great Mother’s Day gift. It ran the same sale for Father’s Day. There were other sales as well.

Barnes & Noble is planning to “adjust” its strategy when it comes to the Nook. Previous to this announcement, Barnes & Noble was building the Nook in-house. Now, it wants to have a co-branded program where some other company will build the Nook.

Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said:

Our aim is to sell tablets, but to do so without the up front risk.

Barnes & Noble believes its unsold inventory of Nooks was the biggest reason for its loss of about $155 million in the most recent fiscal year. The company is going to continue to make black and white eReader devices. It will sell the color-screen Nook HD and the Nook HD+ at a discount through the holiday season.

Avid readers who have been enjoying the Nook app on their PC or Mac are in for some disappointment. According to The Digital Reader Barnes & Noble has officially ended its support for the Nook app for PC and the Nook app for Mac.

More specifically, this is in regards to the Nook for PC for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. It also is in regards to at least some Mac versions of the app. The Digital Reader got an email from Barnes & Noble that suggests that people use Nook for Web instead (whether they are on a PC or Mac).

The eBook Reader notes that Nook for Web doesn’t allow you to save the book you are reading offline. You have to go online to access it. Another problem is that not all of the Nook books are available through Nook for Web. Some people are going to lose access to at least some of the Nook books that they had access to through the apps that have now disappeared.

Personally, I am an avid reader. I love to read and I have more books than I have shelf space for. I am one of the people who has a pile of books that I am dying to read… as soon as I get through the ones I bought before them. Despite my love of reading, I’ve never been interested in owning an eBook Reader. To me, paper books are a whole lot safer than digital ones. I won’t lose them if an app disappears.

Being a international superstar and global jetsetter*, I had the pleasure of passing through Dublin’s Connolly railway station today. In the atrium there was a billboard display of book covers complete with QR codes.

“Totally cool,” I thought. Scan the QR code, buy the ebook, download to my tablet and start reading. The bookstore, Eason, had helpfully included free wifi in the area to get on-line. (For those not familiar with Ireland, Eason would be the leading newsagent, stationers and bookstore, comparable to WHSmith in GB). I scanned this book:

The QR code took me to this page. Strangely, the book offered was a paperback and not an ebook. Huh?

Then I looked at the original poster, “1. Choose your book 2. Scan your QR code 3. Make your purchase 4. Wait for the post 5. Enjoy your book!”

Seriously…”Wait for the post”. Have these guys actually heard of ebooks or did the Kindle completely pass them by? Sure enough, Eason does have a section for ebooks on their website. It says, “Eason eBooks are compatible with Sony, Iriver and Elonex eReaders, as well as all devices that support Adobe EPUB DRM eBooks. Our eBooks are not currently compatible with Apple iOS, Google Android or Amazon devices – this includes iPads, iPhones, iPods, Android phones and tablets, and Kindles.”

So let me get this straight….Eason is appealing to a travelling customer, offering the QR codes to smartphones that will typically be iPhones or Android devices, but ebooks can’t be offered on these because of Adobe’s ePub DRM? Fail, fail, fail.

It’s both totally unbelievable yet completely expected. It’s no wonder Amazon and the Kindle are dominating the market because everyone else is fighting with one hand tied behind their back with DRM. Eason, I had a two hour train journey ahead of me and you had a 100% chance of an ebook sale but you blew it. I’ll turn on my tablet, fire up my Kindle or Nook app and buy directly from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Those of you who have a Kindle might have a refund coming your way, eventually. This is a result of a recent antitrust lawsuit settlement between Amazon and the ebook publishers that were named in the lawsuit: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster, and their many subsidiaries.

Amazon.com has started sending email to some of their customers to tell them that they may be eligible for a credit This specifically relates to ebooks that were purchased between April of 2010 and May of 2012 by the above mentioned publishers. Consumers might receive anywhere between $0.30 and $1.32 for each ebook they purchased during that time frame.

How much you get depends on a few things. First, you have to have purchased an ebook from Amazon during that time frame. The amount of refund you get depends upon if the book was on the New York Times Bestseller list when it was purchased. If so, you could be getting a $1.32 refund for that book. If not, you may be getting less, (as low as $0.30) as a refund for that particular book. If you bought a bunch of ebooks during the time frame the settlement specifies, you could be in for quite a refund.

Before you get too excited, realize that the refunds will not be made until after the courts approve of the settlements. That hearing is scheduled for February of 2013. In addition to Amazon.com, Apple and Barnes & Noble will also be issuing refunds (but the amount hasn’t been released as of yet). The refunds will come in the form of an account credit. It may also be possible for you to request your refund in the form of a check, instead.

It seems to me that most of the time, when lawsuits like these happen, consumers don’t end up receiving anything at all. It is interesting that this time, at least some people will be getting a credit.

I love to read, but I’ve never quite trusted eReaders. To me, it doesn’t matter if the eReader in question is a Nook, or a Kindle, or any of the other varieties. It just isn’t the same as holding an actual book, made of paper, in my hands. The electronic version cannot replace the feel of the weight of the book as I pick it up, the sound of the pages turning, the texture of those pages, or that freshly-printed book smell.

A blogger named Phillip Howard, who writes the Ocracoke Island Journal found another way that eBooks are vastly different from paper books. The text in an eBook can easily be changed from what the original author wrote into something the author never intended.

Phillip was reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace on his Nook. He downloaded this classic work of literature onto his Nook for $0.99. The Nook is the eReader that comes from Barnes & Noble. As he was reading, he came across a sentence that stuck out. Something seemed different about it. The sentence read:

“It was as if a light had been Nookd in a carved and painted lantern….”

That odd misspelling made the sentence jump out. Tolstoy never used the word “Nookd”. When Phillip compared the Nook version of War and Peace to an actual hardcover book version, he found that what Tolstoy actually wrote was:

“It was as if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern…”

In other words, the work kindle had been removed from the text, and had been replaced by Nook. Conspiracy theorists on the internet are saying that this error was intentional, in an effort to prevent people from reading the word kindle and having that lead to the desire to purchase a Kindle from Amazon.

What most likely happened was that the substitution of the word kindle with the word Nook, (odd capitalization included), was nothing more than a Copy-Paste error.

The publisher may have originally put together a digital copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace in a format designed for the Kindle. Later, the publisher made a version that would be the right format for the Nook. It is possible that the publisher told the software to do a universal find-replace, and change the word Kindle to Nook – never realizing that the word kindle actually appeared in the text of the book.

I think I’ll just stick with the old-fashioned books made of paper, thanks.

Ford has produced a brand new feature called SYNC. This is the perfect name for the first system designed to give you in-car tablet compatibility. In other words, SYNC will allow drivers to hook up their favorite tablet device to their car, and access it through voice commands while they are driving.

The voice commands make things safer. Drivers won’t need to actually look at their tablet, or touch it, in order to listen to an audiobook, a podcast, or a song. It truly makes a tablet into a hands free device, and does not require the driver to take his or her eyes of the road.

This is exciting in many ways! This is the first time that drivers will be able to safely make use of their tablets while they are driving. The voice commands that a driver uses to access their tablet make the road a safer place to be. We live in a world where people have gotten into car accidents, and died, while trying to send or receive a text message. The SYNC allows drivers to be entertained without making them into a distracted driver.

Imagine how great this would be for road trips! Tell your tablet to start reading you an audiobook. Choose your favorite playlist, and listen as you drive through places that you have never been before. The SYNC will charge some tablets and e-readers when they are connected through SYNC’s USB connection. You won’t have to worry about finding an outlet to plug your tablet into long enough to charge it. The Ford SYNC will do that for you!

Right now, Ford engineers are testing the SYNC’s compatibility with the new iPad3. The SYNC is already compatible with the original iPad and the iPad2. Other SYNC-compatible devices include: Amazon Kindle, Amazon Kindle Fire, HP Touchpad, HTC Flyer, Barnes & Noble Nook Color, and the Sony Tablet S.

The SYNC also allows you to make a hands-free call with your phone. Answer the phone with the push of a button. Make a call using a voice command. SYNC automatically downloads the names and numbers programed into your compatible phone. Tell your phone to call Mom, and it will do exactly that.

While you cannot put SYNC into an older model Ford, there are several different 2012 models of Ford vehicles that are SYNC compatible. They are the 2012 version of the: Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, Mustang, Taurus, Escape, Edge, Explorer, Flex, Expedition, Transit Connect, F-150, E-Series Wagon, and Super Duty.